


"Go catch a deer"

by VeloxVoid



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Action/Adventure, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd Needs a Hug, Exploration, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen, Near Death Experiences, Team Dynamics, Wholesome, Young Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Young Edelgard von Hresvelg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28034805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeloxVoid/pseuds/VeloxVoid
Summary: In his childhood, Dimitri is sent up to the mountains on a quest to catch a deer. He cannot do it alone, however. Edelgard, his step-sister, is the one brave enough to accompany him on his mission. She is courageous where he is timid, and he is empathetic where she is bold.Together, they traverse the Faerghan wildlife, risk life and limb, and save each other from a threat like no other.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 12
Collections: Step By Step: A Dimitri & Edelgard Siblings Zine





	"Go catch a deer"

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written as part of "Step By Step" — a family-themed zine focused around Dimitri and Edelgard's sibling dynamic! If you'd like to download this zine for free, you can do so: [here!](https://twitter.com/CoF_Zines/status/1337769302284492803?s=20)
> 
> I'm [VeloxVoid](https://twitter.com/VeloxVoid) on Twitter if you'd like to follow me for more. I'm currently taking a bit of a break for my mental health but I should be back fairly soon :)
> 
> TW for a mild description of animal death

“There’s been a disturbance.”

Gustave Dominic stood, towering, over Prince Dimitri outside his bedroom door. Edelgard poked her nose out from behind a pillar, watching the two illuminated beneath the white shafts of moonlight in the corridor.

“A disturbance...?” Dimitri asked sleepily, rubbing the drowse from his eyes.

“In the mountains. Your Highness, we need your aid,” Gustave explained, oddly calm and level about the supposed emergency. “Dress yourself and meet me in the foyer. We leave in twenty minutes.”

As he strode back down the corridor, Edelgard ducked behind the pillar, blending into the shadows. Once Gustave was out of sight, his footsteps swallowed up by the silence of the Blaiddyd manor, she watched her step-brother stand aimlessly, mulling over the directions he’d been given.

Her eyes widened as she realised what was happening.

A mere minute ago, the quietest, softest knock upon the door of a bedroom down the hall had roused the young Lady Edelgard from slumber. Still in her nightgown, she had slipped from her room and down the hall in pursuit of the culprit, finding the two standing outside Dimitri’s room. He was being assigned a mission — something important, and potentially dangerous.

_A disturbance._

“Don’t just stand there, Dimi!” Edelgard whispered to him, watching his head turn each way in search of her.

In his matching pyjamas, hair in disarray, he looked positively lost: younger than his eleven years. “El?” he bleated.

She stepped out of hiding, shooing him back into his bedroom with both hands. “Get ready! Go!”

Confused and sleepy, Dimitri’s big blue eyes blinked at her before he stumbled back into his bedroom. And Edelgard took off too, bare feet tapping lightly against the marble flooring, speeding through one of the many grand hallways the Blaiddyd manor had to offer back to her room. This place was fine, she supposed, if not a little drab. Faerghan architecture had never been quite as spectacular as Adrestia’s.

Re-entering the bedroom she’d been assigned during her stay here, she crossed to the dresser built into the wall. She grabbed some clothes, finding a fleecy scarlet doublet and black leggings, both fur-lined against the cold, and dressed hastily. Hardy leather boots with woollen interiors were perfect for riding as well as for insulation, and their grip would prove pivotal in the mountains.

_Mountains._

That was what Gustave had said. _Of course._ It was guaranteed to be cold up there — bitterly so. Thus, the young lady draped a thick brown scarf around her neck for extra warmth. She rushed to don her furred gloves and a third pair of socks; then, out of breath from rushing around, Edelgard had only to swipe her axe from the back of the dresser, where she’d hidden it against Gustave’s instructions.

With a handsome decorated haft and engraved steel head, it was beautiful — so sharp it reflected the pale sliver of moonlight that cracked through the curtains. Perfect for defense… and for attacking any offenders as well.

Dashing out of her room now fully equipped, Edelgard turned down the corridor and stopped outside Dimitri’s room. Quietly, so as not to wake the rest of the manor, she tapped on the door with her fingernails. The door opened at once. Dimitri stood behind it, wrapped in bundles of black and blue clothes, eyebrows anxious. 

“El?” he whispered. “Why are you dressed? Why do you have…?” And his eyes widened as they settled upon her weapon. “A-an axe!?”

Edelgard placed her free hand on her hip and stepped back. “Because I’m coming with you. Now come on, we don’t have time to waste!”

“How do you have an axe!? It should be in the armoury—!”

“Shush! Let’s go!” Without waiting, she turned on her heel and hurried down the rest of the corridor. By now this maze of a manor was familiar to her, and she made her way to the grand marble staircase with Dimitri on her tail. The axe was heavy, its head made from pure steel, but she held it proudly over her shoulder as if it weighed nothing. If she were to accompany Dimitri on his mission, she would have to prove herself.

Gustave was waiting at the edge of the foyer, just before the polished mahogany doors that led onto the veranda. His brow furrowed when Edelgard trotted up to him.

“My Lady, what are you doing awake at such an hour—?” And, just as Dimitri’s had, his pale blue eyes fell to the weapon on her shoulder. Anger contorted his face. “How have you come to be in possession of such arms!? I ask that you return it to me at once—”

“It’s okay, Gustave,” Dimitri said as he reached her side. “She’s coming with us.”

“She’s what?”

Edelgard lifted her chin, throwing her chest forward just slightly in one of the power stances her mother had taught her; to stand proudly means to draw respect from your peers. “I’m coming with Prince Dimitri to help with the disturbance,” she said, unwavering.

Her boldness took Gustave aback. “This journey is intended for Prince Dimitri _alone.”_

But Dimitri continued in her defence. “I want her to come, Gustave. I trust her.”

His words tickled at Edelgard’s heart. Her new step-brother was not the bravest of lion cubs, but to know he placed trust in her felt good.

Gustave shook his head, but muttered a _‘very well’_ nonetheless. He beckoned the children forwards, equipped Dimitri with a bow and quiver of arrows that he’d placed by the door, and they left the manor. 

Judging by the moon, Edelgard knew the time was past midnight. She was better at reading the sun than the stars, however. “Gustave, what time is it?”

Two horses awaited them in the courtyard, bearing nothing except riding gear. Gustave asked the stableboy to saddle and fetch Edelgard’s horse before responding. “Almost 2 o’clock in the morning.”

She and Dimitri had had no more than five hours of sleep. While she felt alert, fuelled by adrenaline, it explained why her brother still seemed so drowsy.

“Can’t I say bye-bye to Father...?” Dimitri asked as Edelgard’s horse was brought over.

“You can say hello to him at dawn, when you return.” Without further word, Gustave lifted Dimitri onto his horse, did the same with Edelgard, and climbed onto his own.

“Wait, Gustave,” Edelgard piped up, watching him turn to look at her. “Why have we no reinforcements? Shouldn’t we be guarded if we’re warding off a disturbance?”

A smile worked its way through the lines of Gustave’s face. “Well noticed, Lady Edelgard,” he said, making her chest swell with pride. “But we need no reinforcements for this mission. Yourself and Prince Dimitri will be strong enough.”

That left Edelgard to wonder; what could possibly be so weak that two eleven-year-olds and an old man could fend off? She had no time to ask, however, before Gustave walked his horse forwards, and the gates opened for the three of them.

Once through the towering steel bars, Gustave took off through the streets of Fhirdiad at a canter. Edelgard followed at his heels, but Dimitri’s horse lagged behind. They weaved through the main avenues, past sleeping houses and storefronts, until they reached the city walls, the gates of which opened in Gustave’s presence. Only then did he slow until Dimitri could catch up to them, turning a sharp left off the road where the grass beneath absorbed their horses’ footsteps.

Dimitri’s horse sidled up to Gustave’s. “Why are we leaving the road?” he asked. “Father told me—”

“Leaving the roads is the only way to reach the mountains.”

No further elaboration was given. Their horses whickered slightly as they trotted through the grass, crossing a vast field to where the mountains loomed black and cold in the distance. They were the same colour as the sky — Edelgard could only tell where they stood by the jagged blocks of missing stars in the sky beyond.

A sort of hesitation — fear of the unknown — fluttered inside Edelgard’s chest for a moment. She knew not what _disturbance_ awaited them; perhaps there would be monsters perched on the rocky ledges, watching them with hawk’s eyes and waiting to strike. Perhaps it was something scarier than monsters: humans with a passion for nothing except death, waiting with brutal weapons to send them to their demise.

Yet when they reached the base of the cliffs an hour or so later — the dusty mountain path bathed in the light of the Wyvern Moon — no such danger was to be found. Gustave slid from his horse, prompting Dimitri and Edelgard to do the same, and tied their steeds to a nearby tree trunk.

Edelgard began to shiver, though whether out of fright or cold she couldn’t say. Perhaps both. She steeled herself, willed her muscles to still, and grasped onto her axe as her lifeline. She had nothing to fear. She was strong.

Dimitri wasn’t, though. He shuddered visibly, but a boy who had grown up at the base of the Faerghan mountains should have been used to this cold by now. Alas, he shivered not from the cruel fingers of ice that greeted them with each breath of wind, but from fear.

“G-Gustave,” he whined through a chattering jaw. “I want to go home…”

Gustave ignored him entirely. “Your mission is this —”

Edelgard strained her ears to hang onto his every word. Bandits? Monsters? A lost mother and child? Treasure lying deep within a crag that needed retrieving? A ravenous wyvern? A murderous barbarian clan—?

“— go catch a deer.”

The two children blinked at him, uncomprehending, but no further wisdom was offered. He merely watched them, through those cold blue eyes that looked white beneath the moonlight.

“You want us to _catch a deer?”_ Edelgard asked incredulously. The fears swirling in her mind now mocked her. She had been scared — had feared death — but Gustave merely wanted them to catch a prey animal?

“Yes.”

Dimitri looked down at the bow and quiver of arrows in his arms. “Is that why I have these instead of my lance…?”

“Precisely.”

Disdain burned inside Edelgard’s chest, curling her lip. A feeling close to contempt. How much of a fool did this man take them for—?

“Now, run along. I don’t want to see you back here until you’ve caught one, but I expect you to do so by daybreak.” Gustave simply gave them a smile, stepping back.

Edelgard clenched her jaw to keep from screaming out. A disturbance? A mission? Waking them up at 2 o’clock in the morning for _this?_

She was irate. Offended, almost, that they would be tasked with something so menial — so pathetic. “Are we catching tonight’s supper for you, is that it?” she quipped, scowling at him.

Dimitri seemed to sense her belligerence, and took her by the arm before Gustave could reply. “H-how exciting!” he said, marching off towards the path. “C’mon, El!”

They said nothing else as they left Gustave behind, beginning to tramp up the beaten-down path that led upwards, twisting, into the mountains. Yet once Gustave was out of sight — the two children being swallowed up by the trees and rocks as they ventured forwards — Dimitri clung onto her tighter. She simply looked at him as they walked.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“It’s… so dark,” Dimitri said, laughing to mask the shudder to his voice.

Edelgard was inspecting the surroundings as they continued further in. They weaved their way up through the mountain’s base, sloping steadily upwards, trying to ignore the cold. Trees poked out from the rocks to their left; while deer would surely live in such patches of forest, as they did outside of the mountain range, Edelgard knew better than to head into it. Getting lost would be too much of a danger. No, they would stick to the path, treading quietly over the packed dirt, waiting until one crossed them.

Edelgard kept light on her toes, careful not to draw the attention of their prey… or predators. Dimitri was the problem. He kicked up every pebble, tripped over every root, and scuffed his feet, all the while pulling on Edelgard’s arm.

When she scolded him at last, hissing for him to keep quiet in the loudest whisper she dared, he began to complain, droning like a misbehaving child. “This hill is too steep…”

Edelgard rolled her eyes. “It’s a mountain.”

“My feet ache...”

“What did you expect?”

“I want to go home!”

It took everything in her not to snap at him.

Within the next few minutes of Goddess-blessed silence, they continued trudging upwards; the trees to their left were left behind now, replaced by short rows of bushes, their branches reminiscent of a hundred tiny arrows — pointed and deadly. Edelgard led the way, weaving between the arrow-shrubs and sheer, rugged crags to their other side, squinting to see in the moon’s haze.

The quiet could not last, however. Dimitri spoke up again, pouting. “We need a torch, El. There are too many shadows and not enough moonlight. I can’t see… I keep tripping.”

Edelgard merely sighed. “We can’t just _make_ a torch.”

“Yes we can!” He raised his voice a little before she shushed him. When he spoke again, his tone was a whisper. “I was taught how to in my wilderness orientation class—”

“As was I,” she told him. “We know how, but we _shouldn’t.”_

“Why not?”

She fought to restrain another sigh before looking around. Shrubs to their left too low to conceal a deer, and crags to their right. “Because, if we suddenly show up with a fire, we’re going to scare off every target in the vicinity.”

“Oh…”

“These deer have probably never seen firelight before. They’d run before we’d manage to even _see_ them. Not to mention—”

The sound of a pebble skipping along stone sounded before them, and the two siblings watched as a tiny rock fell to the ground from the cliffside above. They stopped in their tracks, caution slowing their movements and tightening their muscles. Looking upwards, they saw only the cliff above them, shadowy and foreboding, the darkness concealing all — any potential threats, natural or human.

“Maybe it just fell on its own… I’m sure the wind is worse up there,” Dimitri offered, but the waver in his voice lacked reassurance.

Suddenly, a pair of yellow eyes, angular and slit-pupilled, flashed a few feet above them.

Dimitri screamed and tightened his grip on Edelgard’s arm, burying his face into her shoulder. At the sound, the eyes narrowed. A scatter of pebbles, the rustle of brushwood, and the eyes leapt down to face Edelgard and Dimitri, growing larger as they neared. Beneath the moonlight that now shone upon it, the creature’s stature was low, quadrupedal, just bigger than one of the lions she’d seen at a circus in her youth. Rounded ears were flattened against its head, and a short muzzle pulled back to reveal a mouth stuffed with teeth.

Its coat looked to be the hue of jet, the moon reflecting slightly blue off of its surface, sleek and shiny. Edelgard had seen such a coat before — one of the densest, yet most fine-haired pelts available across Fódlan. Coupled with the luminescent yellow eyes and maw full of fangs, this was none other than an _umbracat_ , one of Faerghus’ most fearsome predators.

And she stared it in the face. An animal, should legend be believed, that had once single-handedly torn up an entire camp of sleeping soldiers in an ancient war. Over the sound of Dimitri’s terrified squeaking, its growl could be heard: deep and guttural, reverberating in Edelgard’s chest, playing on her lungs like bass drums.

It slinked towards them, placing one huge paw — each the size of the childrens’ faces — in front of the other. On instinct, she and Dimitri took paces back, keeping their eyes locked on the glowing predator’s before them.

Edelgard freed her other arm from Dimitri’s grip and slipped her hand around the top of her axe’s hilt. Slowly, she readied it to swing, hearing the growl grow louder at her movements.

“El...” came Dimitri’s high voice, no more than a warble.

She braced herself, trying to quell the pounding to her heart, before a bellow cracked from her throat. “Run, Dimitri!”

It was as if a cannon had been fired. The moment the words left her lips, the umbracat screeched — the sound a terrifying mixture of a kitten’s mew and a wyvern’s roar. It leapt towards her, Dimitri took off at a run, and Edelgard swung her axe hard. Her blade bit into the beast’s paw, removing what looked to be a toe, and she darted out of the way. No sooner had the umbracat hit the ground, however, than it had turned on its heels, eyes locked onto Edelgard, promising death.

She turned tail and scurried up the path, turning once more to blindly swing her axe behind her. She misjudged; the umbracat had followed but instead of the blade finding its way into the beast’s massive face, the flat of her axe did instead. She slapped the cat hard, hearing its skull clang against the steel, and it shrieked.

 _Sothis,_ Edelgard could only think, sucking in breaths through her mouth. She was not doing very well. The plan inside her head had been foolproof: cut at the creature and sever its head clean off.

Easier said than done. Especially whilst wearing gloves.

It leapt at her once more, each paw hitting her squarely in the shoulder, and she dropped her axe. She hit the floor hard, its claws dug into her skin, and it opened its mouth. Foul breath, stinking of rotting meat and stale blood, hit her nose and made her whimper, and she turned away from the rows of dagger-like teeth — they would sink into her neck at any moment—

Its scream filled her ears — both low and high at the same time, and the weight of the umbracat shifted off her. Eyes snapping open, Edelgard watched the beast flail, jaw snapping at an arrow wedged into its flank before another one caught it in the throat. The noise that it emitted, now a gurgling, suffocated howl, was unholy. The umbracat turned to its perpetrator with a hiss before limping away into the shrubs. Emerging from behind it came Dimitri, terrified, bow still raised.

A swear word crossed Edelgard’s mind as she realised the rate of her heart — felt the blood pump hard through her veins. She heaved breaths and watched her step-brother stumble over to her, skin as white as a sheet beneath the low light.

“Are you okay?” he asked, reaching out to her. His hand shook like a leaf.

Edelgard smiled. “Yes, I’m… fine,” she said, keeping dignity intact. “You’re a good shot, you know.”

A tight smile crossed his lips. She took his hand and he pulled her to her feet. Upon bending down to collect her axe, however, she felt sharp bursts of pain around her shoulders. At her grimace, Dimitri gasped.

“You’re hurt!” he whispered.

“I’m _fine_ ,” she reiterated, almost a pained snarl.

Dimitri led her into the cover of the arrow-shrubs, where the needles snagged gently at their clothes. Luckily, the children were wrapped in too many layers to feel their tiny teeth biting at their skin; they crouched down until just their heads and shoulders poked out from the brush, and Dimitri convinced Edelgard to let him take a look at her wounds.

“It’s nothing,” she insisted as he poked around the holes that the umbracat had sliced in her doublet.

“You’re bleeding a bit through your clothes,” he fretted as he inspected. “We should go back to Gustave—”

“What, without his stupid deer?” she hissed. “No way. We continue.”

Before Dimitri could protest, a sound behind them made them freeze, hearts pounding. Something was crashing through the brush behind them, twigs snapping in its wake, its feet thumping against the ground.

 _Curse the blasted Goddess!_ Edelgard screamed inside her head, images of the cat’s snarling maw flooding her brain and sending her to panicking. She began to breathe heavily, her wounds throbbing more; the beast was back, bloodthirsty, and would promise revenge. How could they have been so foolish, to follow it into the shrubs—!?

A shadow leapt past them. Skidding to a halt on the path before them was an animal. A smaller animal. Daintier — its silhouette beneath the moonlight slight and skinny.

It was unmistakably a deer. A doe, no horns upon its head.

Edelgard’s heart leapt for another reason — out of disbelief and glee instead of fear and panic. A deer! An honest-to-Goddess deer! The one animal they’d been tasked to find, that they’d almost died for, delivered to them!

It stopped, standing alert on the path, ears raised and looking into the shrubs behind them. Realisation clicked inside Edelgard’s mind; most likely it had been startled by the umbracat and had fled for safety.

As silent as the two children were, the deer did not seem to realise how much less safe it was now upon crossing their path; ever-so-slowly, Dimitri readied his bow. Notched an arrow. He took aim silently and Edelgard’s heart wedged in her throat.

This was their chance — their only chance. One wrong move and they would lose their prize; it would slip from their grasp just as Edelgard had slipped from the umbracat’s, and they would be left empty-handed, their mission failed.

A soft whizz as Dimitri's arrow cut through the air — like a bee flitting past her ear.

He missed by a mile. The arrow clattered quietly to the ground somewhere on the path beyond, making the deer’s head turn towards it — more alert than ever, but standing deathly still, sure not to move even so much as a whisker.

“I regret what I said.” Edelgard’s voice was no more than an exhale.

“H-huh…?”

She took the bow from Dimitri’s hands. He didn’t protest, instead handing her an arrow from his quiver that she notched with ease.

“Maybe you’re not such a good shot after all.”

And with that, Edelgard let her arrow fly. She had been aiming for its neck, inspired by the way Dimitri had taken out the umbracat, but instead her arrow burrowed deep into the deer’s eye.

Dimitri yelped as he watched the animal suffer, and blubbered as it slumped to the ground.

“Don’t be such a baby, Dimi,” Edelgard said, handing him back his bow.

“I feel so sorry for it.”

She felt a pang of guilt at his upset, watching tears fill his eyes, glinting white in the moonlight.

“As do I," she said. "Blame Gustave.”

She stood, glanced around her for more yellow orbs of eyes, and stepped out of the shrubs upon finding none. “Help me carry this, would you?”

Reluctantly, Dimitri followed, joining her at the body of the doe. It looked smaller close up — perhaps it was more of a fawn than a doe. Perhaps it was merely a small species of deer. Edelgard didn’t want to dwell on it too much. She positioned itself by its front legs and directed Dimitri to its hind ones, and on her count of three, they lifted.

It was heavier than anticipated. Together, they began waddling back down the path with the deer in tow.

“Dimi?”

“Yeah?”

Edelgard turned to him and smiled. “Thank you for saving me.”

He returned it bashfully. “Of course, El.”


End file.
